Reflection 1 - Is it Sustainable that we continue on our current path of technological development?

The driving question above sustains a lot of depth and discussion when we consider how large of a role technology plays in today's world, especially when we think in the context of a classroom or the school system.

In high school, iPads were all given to us as a form of learning and that was used in every aspect of my education up until year 10 when we were given Laptops instead because they were thought to be more reliable than iPads. Reliability is a word I don't think should be used to describe technology anymore.  During school teachers and coordinators would always bring up the point that laptops and technology were reliable, and saving everything to our one drive and onto our laptop was the best course of action to keep everything safe, but thinking about this more as an adult, has me thinking that technology isn't as reliable as we think.

As an adult now technology has grasped a significant portion of my life. I spend quite a lot of time on my phone/laptop watching things, and almost all of my work including university work is saved to my laptop. Technology causes me quite a bit of stress when I have issues navigating technology such as errors or glitches. Or even when I forget to charge my laptop/phone that causes significant amounts of stress because I can't access my schoolwork. I don't think that this stress, looking back was worth it, and it wasn't necessary. Of course, to prevent issues like this from occurring in the future, I would need to plan out my schedule in more detail and ensure that I do not go to university/school with an undercharged phone or laptop if I know I need to use it. Using strategies and rules for myself and for younger generations to prevent this overreliance would also be effective, putting in place rules such as the 10-minute rule for iPhones or even time locks for social media helps us to moderate our online use and stop the dependency we seem to be reliant on. (“Stolen Focus’ Warns against the Profit-Motivated Distractions of Technology - ProQuest,” 2022). There were positive aspects of this experience, however. Although stress like this has and did occur, I always did enjoy the aspect that there was one place where I could save all my important documents and keep track of them all together. 

Thinking on this question now and reflecting on my technological journey, I believe that our dependence on technology is not sustainable, but it can be. It requires us as people to use technology moderately and not overuse and overstimulate ourselves on it all the time, myself included. We can begin by not always using our phones or devices on the train or tram. Even not doing work or assignments on our devices all the time and write down notes or even use posted notes to keep track of things rather than using our phones for calendars or reminders. It is this overuse of our devices that we as people can stop doing and can therefore reduce our dependency on technology.